Flashback: Journalists Predicted Midterms Would Be a GOP 'Referendum'
Now that a Republican wave in the midterm elections has resulted in a GOP Senate, big gains in the House and shocking wins in governors races across the country, it's important to look back on the breathtakingly inaccurate predictions made by liberal journalists about candidates like Wendy Davis, Scott Walker and others. Abortion advocate Davis lost by 20 points in Texas, securing just 39 percent of the vote.
Yet, on July 1, 2013, after the Democrat's fillibuster in the state senate, CNN's Miguel Marquez hyped, "A Democrat in the governor's mansion here? Unthinkable a week ago; a ‘maybe' today." On June 30, 2013, Eleanor Clift proclaimed, "State Senator Wendy Davis in Texas, with her 11-hour filibuster, will begin to turn the state baby blue."
Other examples of journalists promoting Davis as a political dynamo include:
"If I were Wendy Davis, I would not limit myself to think about just being the governor of Texas. I think that she is a star. I think she has the guts, the political moxie. She is exactly what women in this country have been begging for."
— MSNBC's Ed Schultz on The Ed Show, June 30, 2013."The marathon filibuster that went viral has turned a little-known Texas lawmaker into a national political star....Some political analysts are comparing it to the 1988 Democratic convention speech that catapulted Ann Richards to the national stage."
— Correspondent Manuel Bojorquez on CBS This Morning, June 27, 2013.
On September 14, 2014, Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd declared that if Kansas Governor Sam Brownback "loses re-election, he’s going to essentially have lost because he cut taxes too much.” Brownback won by a comfortable four points.
On October 28, 2014, CBS Evening News reporter Dean Reynolds wondered if a Walker loss in Wisconsin would "send a message to the rest of the country about the kind of policies and politics that he practices.” Walker won by more than five percent.
On November 3, 2014, CBS Evening News reporter Bill Whitaker declared:
BILL WHITAKER: In Florida, the Republican Governor Rick Scott is in a tight race with the Democrat Charlie Crist and in Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker is facing Democrat Mary Burke. Now, both Scott and Walker have followed the Republican playbook on taxes, on abortion, on same-sex marriage, and tomorrow's kind of shaping up to be a referendum on those policies.
If Tuesday night was a referendum on Rick Scott's policies in Florida, it should be noted that he, too, was reelected to a second term.
Journalists hopefully suggested that GOP loses in Florida, Wisconsin, Texas and Kansas would have profound importance. Republicans won in all those states. Will the same reporters find meaning in conservative victory?
— Scott Whitlock is Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Scott Whitlock on Twitter.
